HP Deskjet D2430 Printer (CB614A#B1H) by Hewlett Packard
|
List Price: Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
(Click here)
Digital camera reviews of HP Deskjet D2430 Printer (CB614A#B1H)
Digital camera Review: NO USB CABLE AND NO BLACK INK
Summary: 1 Stars
I knew I wasn't getting black ink, but no usb cable is just ridiculous. It's like buying a lawnmower and it not having the blade. Absurd.Digital camera Review: Nice but not so nice
Summary: 2 Stars
The printer got to me very quickly, even with free shipping, and as others have said there's not a USB cable or a black cartridge in the box, but what can one expect for $40?
The install took a long time, and while installing it I began to notice some of the not so nice features. First, doing the recommended install, it puts three icons on your desktop. That's a bit much. Second, the install takes a over a common feature of the web browser. I found that when I went to copy something to paste it into another window, the copy function had sort of been taken over by the printer so that I could directly print what I had just highlighted. That doesn't sound that annoying, but several of the other common functions were taken away. It is, though, an easily fixable problem as you can deselect this function right away. Third, at the end of the install comes product registration. Not a big deal, typing in all my info, and as I'm about to hit send I decide to check out HP's privacy policy. I HATE spam. So I click on FAQ and on the second link, the one about their privacy policy. How interesting: it's a dead link. Yeah, don't think I'll be sending them any information.
But last and most importantly was an incredibly godawfully annoying thing. I hook the printer up, print out a couple things, and I unplug the printer. I'm going to keep it on a counter out of the way and not hooked up to my laptop all the time. Well, the computer starts going ape. It's sending me an alert every five seconds along with an error tone and I'm trying to hit the close the windows and tell the computer that I know the printer is disconnected and just leave me alone and nothing works. Everytime I open the start menu, the alert comes back on and closes the start menu. This goes on for 10 minutes. Finally I just restart the whole machine.
I suppose I could have gone through the whole remove hardware procedure, but come on. What I wanted to do couldn't have been that uncommon a thing, and having to restart a computer just because it's unplugged from the printer is absurd. It was totally done printing, and I even turned it off and then unplugged it, and it freaks out. If I have to do this every time I use the thing, I'm not going to be happy.
All that said, it printed reasonably quickly and the images are crisp.
Digital camera Review: Pretty good
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a nice printer especially for the money. There are a few problems. Paper jams are a common occurance. It does take a tad too long to print also, but I did not expect great things for a cheap printer. It does the job and doesn't hurt the pocketbook.Digital camera Review: Printer Review
Summary: 4 Stars
Printer is lightweight, prints pretty nicely. It isn't really THAT much of a money saver when you consider you have to buy the USB cord and a cartridge of black ink to go with it. I could see having to buy color, but black? I would think black is a standard......silly me. So by the time we purchased all that, it was about the same amount of money as other printers that actually include the ink and/or USB cord.
I knew about the USB cord/black ink issue going in, so I can't say that I was disappointed, I just think it is pretty crummy of HP to not include at least the ink!
Oh well, overall we are happy with the printer.
Digital camera Review: Software in Vista, and HP support, is exasperating
Summary: 2 Stars
I got this printer today, and wanted to share the funny debacle that followed software installation of it on Vista (but believe me, it wasn't funny while it was going on during an intense paper-due-tomorrow crunch).
Firstly, I unchecked installation of all software components I did NOT want clogging up my computer. Apparently I should have been more careful - for every. single. tab. I tried to open in Explorer after the software was in place, Windows Security Shield popped up a message that HP was trying to open its web imaging software. Casual browsing became this huge nuisance, and you guessed it, HP does not let you disable the web printing service once you've installed it.
At this point I'm stressed to my bones and figure I should try and ask their online chat "technician" whether there is any humanly possible way to deactivate the web-print service that is causing the annoying security messages (in Vista, it keeps popping up even if you choose to "disallow" and for the program to be remembered). I am assuredly told that "we shall deal with this issue together".
This technician of genius then proceeds to tell me I need to RESET THE START PAGE of my browser. I go, what, how's this supposed to help me? I won't do that, it makes no sense. She then sagely advises me to TURN ON THE POP-UP BLOCKER - I specified twice that the pop-ups had nothing to do with the browser, but with the Security Shield being bugged by HP's web-print service wanting to get access to my browser.
Fortunately her insistence I do ridiculous tweaks with my browser rather than fix the friggin HP software settings reminded me I could disallow HP as an add-on (go to "manage add-ons" in your browser options). Three hours later, I get a "follow-up" e-mail where this same support person tells me to turn off my phishing filter (jesus christ, I definitely will NOT)... sigh.
One hour after that, the software starts telling me there is no color cartridge (there is, and I re-install it and re-start the printer). Problem is, it apparently wants to do this everytime I unplug the printer from my laptop and open the laptop again... and the pop-ups return with 6-second intervals. Great job making this printer Vista-compatible, you guys.
I'm returning this printer as soon as my paper is done. I'm sure it's very nice printing quality, I just can't deal with the way HP tries to take over my computer and ends up leaving it a mess -- and man, if this is what support is like over a directly HP-related issue, I DON'T want to know what they'd do with a more complex problem.